Paul Ryan: IRS connection to Obamacare is ‘rotten to the core’

Former Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan (R-WI) on Sunday used the news that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) had scrutinized tea party groups to slam the agency’s connection to President Barack Obama’s heath care reform law.

Host Chris Wallace pointed out to Ryan on Fox News Sunday that the Treasury inspector general had suggested that a recent IRS scandal had been a “bureaucratic snafu” because tea party groups only represented 96 of the 298 groups that received special scrutiny about their tax-exempt status.

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Ryan, however, insisted that the IRS had targeted conservative groups based on their political beliefs and “to suggest that this is some bureaucratic snafu, that’s already been disproven.”

“The other point I’d say is that as bad as this is, the person in charge of this bureaucratic snafu is now been put in charge of implementing Obamacare,” he continued. “I mean, the IRS is now going to be granted huge amounts of unprecedented power over our health care in the implementation of Obamacare.”

“And so this is just rotten to the core. This is arrogance. This is big government cronyism. And this is not what hard-working taxpayers deserve.”

CBS News observed last week that there was no evidence that Sarah Hall Ingram, who headed the IRS office overseeing tax-exempt organizations between 2009 and 2012, “sanctioned or was even aware of the targeting practices.”

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About the Author

David Edwards has served as an editor at Raw Story since 2006. His work can also be found at Crooks & Liars, and he's also been published at The BRAD BLOG. He came to Raw Story after working as a network manager for the state of North Carolina and as as engineer developing enterprise resource planning software. Follow him on Twitter at @DavidEdwards.